Note: While our most popular guides have been translated into Spanish, some guides are only available in English.

Verifying your site with Google Search Console

Last updated September 26, 2017 10:24

Sections

Google Search Console is a free service that helps you manage your site's presence in Google search results. Through Google Search Console, you can request that Google index your site, meaning changes you've made will show up in search results sooner.

Before you begin

If you have a site-wide password or a password on your homepage, remove it for the verification process. You can re-add it after your domain is verified. To learn more, visit our guides on changing/removing site-wide passwords and page passwords.

If you have a custom domain from a third-party provider, it must be connected properly. For best results, we recommend waiting 72 hours after you connect your domain before you verify it with Google Search Console.

Verification with Google Search Console won't work on trial sites. If your site is in trial, upgrade to paid service before continuing.

A Google account is required to sign up for Search Console. You can create one here.

Step 1 - Register for Google Search Console

Note: If you're already logged into a Google account, the Search Console welcome screen will open automatically. If this isn't the Google account you want to use with Search Console, sign out and log into the correct account.

Enter your primary domain name in the box and click Add Property. Do the following to ensure you're entering your domain correctly:

Note: If you already verified your site with Google Analytics, check Google Analytics, then click Verify.

Step 3 - Add HTML tag to code injection

In a new tab, log into your Squarespace site. In the Home Menu, click Settings, click Advanced, and then click Code Injection.

Paste the meta tag in the Header field. Click Save.

Step 4 - Verify your site

In Google Search Console, click Verify.

A congratulations message will appear.

Step 5 - Index your site (optional)

One of the primary uses for Google Search Console is requesting Google index your site. This forces Google's bots to review your site and helps Google update search results with your new content.

When you contact us about updates not appearing in search results, we'll likely recommend that you follow this process.

On the Search Console homepage, select the site you'd like to index.

On the left dashboard, click Crawl and then click Fetch as Google, which appears as a child menu item below Crawl.

Leave the text box blank and leave Desktop selected in the drop-down menu.

Click Fetch to see the HTTP response Google received from your page.

Click Request Indexing next to your results.

Check Crawl this URL and its direct links. You can submit up to 10 of requests of this kind per month.

Click Go.

The next step is to wait. According to Google, "Once you submit your URL, you might need to wait some time for Google to process your request as well as crawl and index the page. Also, understand that we can't guarantee that Google will index all your changes as Google relies on a complex algorithm to update indexed materials."

Crawl errors

When verifying your site with Google Search Console, you'll see a message showing that parts of your URL are restricted by robots.txt. This is completely normal. We ask Google not to crawl these pages because they’re for internal use only or display duplicate content that can count against a site's SEO.